Your Keys Please

Ever heard of the slang "punter"? My mothers side of the family was from Great Britain. We always had fun poking at British jargon. I’ll always remember my uncle, who was in the Venetian blind business, back in the early days when blinds were made from wood. Uncle Barney always referred to his problem customers as "punters". As generations pass down habits, I found myself using that term in reference to my problem automotive customers.

One "punter" was especially difficult to handle. Dealing with him was a delicate matter. Imagine this. A little Hyundai Elantra drives up and a unrefined horse of a man, weighing in at around 400 pounds and reaching a towering six feet six inches, climbs out. This was Big Al.

Big Al was the kind of driver that made you appreciate the extra strength that engineers put into designing cars. Even with the seat all the way back in the Hyundai Elantra, he could hardly fit behind the steering wheel. The seat belt barely went all the way around his huge stomach—with the extra add-on extension—just making it to the latch.

Big Al was as one of those Dr. Jeckell & Mr. Hyde characters. His pock-marked face was a vestige of an acne-filled teenhood and his enormous waist size was attributed to overeating and lack of exercise. Add a dose of genetics for the height factor and you've got the image of this huge man. Al had been a punter long enough for us to learn that he was a liar. We had shaky dealings with him in the past. He would ask us to fix one thing, then say that something else broke after the work was completed.

We quickly learned to document every problem in advance of touching anything. That way he couldn’t come storming in and threatening us because we broke something that he swore was working perfectly okay before we touched his car. In short, the guy was a scam artist. But even scan artists need car repairs. And his money was just as good as the next person—just so long as we handled him right.

“What do you know?” he would always say when he came up to the desk. It seems most really big and fat people, were outgoing like Big Al. He was easy to get to like, once you got past his intimidating sheer size and pock-marked face. But, on order for a confidence man to work, he has to win your confidence, right? Big Al’s easy-going, pleasant and jovial manner made him as believable as the day is long, and he could sell you the Eiffel Tower and you’d think he was sincere.

But, let me take a minute to tell you about my theory of problem customers.

My theory concerns what I call the “Vampire Punter.” This theory has a great deal of meaning to me in terms of how well my business works. And how the people who come in the door interact with me, and my staff. And, my theory can also be applied to people in our lives, too. It’s kind of universal, as you’ll see.

I’ve found there are two basic types of problem customers. Those that are punters who are a pain, and those who take advantage, the “Vampire Punters.” In reality, all punters are more or less one or the other. Our job is to be able to distinguish who is which. For our own betterment, we must prepare ourselves to deal with the Vampires, or they will feast on our energies, getting away with as much as they can for free. They have the ability to manipulate us into doing all sorts of things for them—or their cars, all the while paying nothing for the “extra freebies”.

Instead of blood, Vampire Punters suck our energies. They use us, take advantage of us, and keep us from doing other—profitable—work. They’re always replete with problems, and play on our sympathies to come bail them out. Their modus operandi is to use one of two ploys to maintain their disguise. They’re either aggressive or passive. The aggressive ones are easy to spot, just like Big Al.

They’re nice to start off with, then they find an excuse to blow up at you—making you feel guilty for something you’ve done—or not done. They’re always coming up with something we did wrong, and laying the blame on us. They try to make us feel guilty and in return, we do things for them—for free. They start out nice and mild as a lamb, and then turn into roaring tigers as they play the blame game. “You worked on it last, therefore you broke it” is their favorite ploy.

The passive ones are not so easy to spot. Their disguises make us totally blind to them. I say blind, but actually we are blinded. A Vampire Punter has the uncanny ability to con us, and prevent us from seeing how they use our energies. It’s like a spell that they put on us.

The passive vamps are easy going, nice, mild-mannered and friendly people. They easily win over our confidence. But it’s only part of their disguise. All the time, they’re looking for ways to take advantage of us. And because being so nice, they’re hard to spot.

Oh, and speaking of disguise! Vampires sometimes appear as model customers, friends, co-workers--and are even family members. The clever part of their disguise is that they’re friendly, and act as if you are near and dear to them. Or they put up a fuss when their don’t get their way. To keep fooling us into believing they’re allies, they’ll shell out just enough money. But in reality, they’re nothing but rip-off’s.

The exact opposite of the Vampire Punter is the model customer. These are customers that always seem to somehow assist us in getting their car problem repaired. Then, after the job is completed, they’re happy to pay their bill. They don’t gripe, bitch, and moan. They don’t ask for you to do extra’s at no charge—and don’t for that matter, expect freebies every time you turn around.

Free tow job. Free pick up and delivery of their broken car. Free advice over the phone so they can fix it themselves without paying us to do it. And worst of all, free repairs because they blame us for the problem—saying that it didn’t exist before we worked on it—and we caused it to happen… so we must repair it or they’ll sue!

Over the years I’ve hit on a tried-and-true ways to spot a Vampire Punter. I call it “personal introspection”. This can help you spot a Vampire that’s feeding on your businesses services and good will. To use personal introspection, you must pay attention to your gut, to how your stomach (guts) feels at the exact moment when the Vampire calls—or comes through the door. As soon as your gut recognizes the Vampire Punter, you’ll feel it knot up and grimace.

Then, a spell will overcome you, and your mind will be clouded by the con. You won’t know what’s happening to you, and will be unable to snap out of it. They now have your confidence. You are now too duped to keep them from sucking your shop services. The parasite has now latched on to its host and your gut is silent.

Big Al latched onto us just after we changed the oil in Big Al’s Elantra. That’s all we did. An oil change. Then the next day he’s calling on the phone, hopping mad that we broke his car. As soon as I heard Big Al’s booming voice on the other end of the phone, my stomach started doing flip-flops.

“Here it comes!” I said to myself as I heard Al’s booming voice from the other end of the phone. “Oh, no. What’s wrong now!?” I grimaced. He said that after he picked up his car, the engine began knocking. Sometimes it cuts off.

He’s really upset, saying his car is unsafe to drive…that we ruined his engine… that we ran it without oil… that we didn’t use the right kind of oil... that someone revved the engine too high… that we hot-rodded his car.

Now, we’re talking about a 1995 Hyundai Elantra, with a lot of miles on it. And on top of that, there’s the abuse it gets from lugging around this monster of a man! And he’s accusing us of abusing his car? Well, I’m hip enough to know how to diffuse a problem customer.

Don’t argue. Agree with everything. Don’t deny anything, and agree with what they say. Let them vent. And after they’re done, offer a solution.

After Big Al finished dumping on me, I offered to send my truck over and tow it back to the shop so I could look it over. I would look into the matter personally. And if we were responsible for ruining his motor, we would certainly make good on it. But, I wanted to run some tests and see if we could establish a cause first, I explained to him over the phone. All the while I’m suspicious that he’s trying to get more free work from us.

He agreed, and I dispatched one of the techs to go fetch his Elantra. Within an hour it was being unloaded at the shop door. I watched as Big Al climbed down from where he had been riding shotgun in the tow truck. The normal angelic look on his face was gone, and it’s place was the look of a madman. He was really scary. Four-hundred-plus pounds of ranting and raving madman. That’s what I had on my hands. Wowser!

“Okay, Al, what do ya know?” I said, using his favorite phrase to help calm him down. “My car, that’s what. You guys f---ed up my car.” “I’m awful sorry if we did, Al. I’ll get right on it and get to the bottom of it right away.” I said hoping to placate him even further. “Can I offer you a ride?”

The day was late and I was about at the end of my wits by this time of the day. Five-o’clock was less than an hour away and I didn’t want to get involved anymore than necessary. “Hell, what about my ride?” I mean, what am I supposed to do, walk?” he said with such fervor that suddenly I found myself with new unfound energy. “Sure, no problem, Al. I’ll get right on it.” I said as I removed the ignition key from Al’s massive key ring.

I remember thinking how everything about him was big—even his keyring! And how about those monster-sized Marlboro’s, or little cigars that he always was smoking. The whole inside stank of the cigars and cigarillos. Oh, how I hated sitting in a smoker’s car—especially Big Al’s! Ashes were everywhere. Ashtray was overflowing with butts. And, speaking of ashtrays, it was like the entire inside of the car was one giant ashtray!

I hate it when smokers borrow my car and smoke in it. Even if the windows are open, smokers still leave their smell behind. A while back, when Big Al got a free tire balance after we did CV joints—that’s another story for some other time—I wound up lending him my car because our loaner was already in use. He raised such a fuss that I handed him my own car keys just to get him out of the waiting room. And it stunk of smoke for weeks after.

But, unlike Al, his car wasn’t big. And being a Hyundai, there wasn’t any way I could connect a scanner and flight recorder to capture his intermittent stall problem. I’d have to check it out with my four senses—eyes, ears, nose and touch. What could be the matter? Well, as I drove it I immediately found out that it did ping. Big time. It pinged like it was going to beat the band.

Pulling back into the shop, I grabbed the lead tech, and said, “Shawn, what’s been done—or not done to this Hyundai? I’m going to pull the RO’s and have a look. While I do, give it a good once over, looking for a reason for stalling and pinging.” A few minutes later I had the past repair orders in my hand and was pouring over them for any clues. Nothing. At least, nothing we had done. But one thing was apparent. He hadn’t been in for and recent oil changes—other than the one we did yesterday.

That’s when the red flags went up. It was then that I realized he was trying to pull another fast one. Big Al purposely brought us the Hyundai so he could blame this new problem on us. He figured he’d snooker us into thinking we’d caused it. And we’d end up fixing it for free. No dice. Not this time. We’d already been there and done that enough times in the past. He wasn’t going to sucker us this time! Over my dead body—even if he was a vampire!!

By the time I got back out in the shop, Shawn had our diagnostic machine connected up to the Hyundai’s 1.6 liter engine. He had a puzzled look on his face. “S’up?” I inquired.

“Distributor. Someone’s been cranking on the distributor—got the timing way off.” He replied.

“How far?” was my query. “Maybe ten degrees advanced.” Shawn replied.

“Ten degrees! Well now, there’s a good reason for ping. Betcha someone was monkeying around with the timing and idle to try and cure the stalling problem. Betcha!” I announced.

Well, I decided that as long as it wasn’t going to cost us in parts, I would go ahead and have Shawn straighten out the timing and troubleshoot the idle. Big Al said the car just quit. Maybe he meant that it just stalled. I mean, people get confused between when their engine quits while they are going along, and when it quits when they are stopped. All they know is that the engine conked out. They don’t know to look around and see what’s happening when it quits. They are so upset by it happening, they forget.

So, to make a long story short, this was only the beginning of a wild goose chase. We reset the timing and base idle speed—which is a long and time consuming process—and figured we had it whipped. But, the very next day Big Al was back at the front desk, hammering his huge meaty fist on the counter and accusing us of causing his problem. Funny how his problem had evolved from “The engine knocks like it has been ruined and then quits” to “The engine won’t run anymore. It just stops.”

So, once again we went at it. Using what Ford calls the “wiggle-test,” every wire and connector under the dash and engine compartment was tugged, shaken, and cajoled. Just for good measure, every connector in sight was opened up and the terminals cleaned and tightened. The only thing we could find was a normal engine rpm change of about 150 rpm when the radiator cooling fan cycled on and off.

No such luck. It still had a mystery problem that would only happen for Big Al. So, just before turning the car over to him, I decided to take my health in my hands and go for a ride with him. I wanted to make sure that I really knew what caused it—if anything!

As we drove out of the shop parking lot, Big Al suggested that our shop must have some kind of electrical field around it—that we have wired the ground around the repair shop. “You guys have an electric grid under this place--that's why it never acts up while it's here. Those electric wires buried under the parking lot make all things electrical behave… kinda like a cattle prod... those wires send out an electrical field and affect the electrical system of my car.

Well, it performed perfectly. Not a hiccup, and not a burp. Nothing. “Maybe I should leave it with you for a day or two so you can drive it around town. Then you'll see what I mean,” he said. It didn't help. We took turns driving the car for two days and it never did stall. No end. And of course, Al came back again—even more angry than before.

So, once again we swapped cars with him and I took on driving his stinky Elantra. One thing that I did notice was the way the seat collapsed under this enormous weight. I had to sit on a chair cushion in order to drive the car. I could swear the car's springs were sagging as I drove it home.

The years of smoke had coated the inside of the windows with a layer of soot and driving it made me feel a little like I was driving in a fog. Still, it ran with aplomb and never even hiccuped once. “Maybe the car had a personality conflict with the driver” I thought.

When Big Al returned for his car, I told him my theory about the personality conflict. “Hmmmmm. Seems strange. Never heard of that one before. Maybe you're onto something. Why don't you ride along with me and check it out?”

“Sure,” I said. “Let's go. Here's your key.”

When I handed him the car key, Big Al reached into his enormous pants pocket and pulled out an equally enormous set of keys. He slipped the ignition key onto the keyring and swung his enormous body behind the steering wheel. The car sagged and I could hear the springs groan. I climbed into the passenger seat and Big Al immediately lit up a smoke.

“Mind if I roll down the window,” I gagged.  “No, go right ahead. I understand. Sorry. Miserable habit.”

He was in the process of twisting the ignition key when it hit me. The massive key ring was the cause of the stalling. The weight of all those keys tugged down on the ignition switch, causing it to go open-circuit. To test my theory, I told him to wait a moment before taking off. I reached over and began tugging and pulling on the key ring. Sure enough, when I pulled his heavy key ring toward the dash, the car stalled.

Oh, that reminds me. There’s a second way to tell if someone is a Punter Vampire. You just have to meditate on it. Uncle Barney used to say, “cogitate”. To me, it’s more like “reflecting in the mirror of time”. I like to use this technique after hours, when everyone’s gone and you’re alone doing your paperwork. Kinda’ like reflecting your day’s work.

To know if a person in question is a vampire, you use a mirror of sorts. Remember how one of the details in the vampire myth used a mirror to tell? Remember how you could tell if a vampire was standing next to you? You could look for their reflection in a mirror and it isn’t there. They’re invisible to a mirror.

In a similar fashion, a Punter Vampire can’t be seen in a mirror—only this is a different mirror—the mirror of time. Take a minute and reflect your experiences with the person in question using the mirror of time. Here’s how. Simply ask yourself, “Ever since this person started doing business here, what’s happened? What comes to mind?”

Take a reflective review of the relationship your shop has had with this customer. If all that shows up in your review is hardships, grief, hassles, annoyances, aggravation, bother, and frustration—look out! This person is a Vampire!

On the other hand, if your mirror-of-life reflects goodness, helpfulness, good deeds, paid bills, no long standing debts, and no list of special favors—your customer is an Ally.

Once you’re able to identify a Vampire as one of your customers, you have two choices. You can cast them aside—or deal with them. I know a shop owner who keeps a customer black list. If you show up at the door and you name’s on that list, you’re asked to vacate the premises—or the police will be called immediately! This owner believes in casting customers aside like that to keep them away. While it’s true that Vampires must learn to fend for themselves, I believe there’s a better way.

I believe that once we know what they are, we don’t have to be a host. I believe that if we refuse to go along with their influence, they’ll either disappear or change their ways. I believe in giving all people the benefit of doubt; giving them an incentive to pull their lives together. Giving them an incentive to do things for themselves.

That’s why I put up with customers like Big Al. And that’s why this episode with his broken car was such a nightmare. It was like the car had a dark cloud over it. Every time we came near it, something went wrong; most of the time Big Al intimidated us to the point that he got the repairs free.

You see, even though Al was a huge a vampire punter, we didn’t see it. We wanted to believe him—despite the fact he’d lied to us, manipulated us, and used our good graces so many times in the past. However, once I caught on that he was a vampire, I became dubious of his “story”.

The trouble with finding Big Al's problem was Big Al. Part of it was that we wanted to believe him, but his complaint never happened for us. Every time he dropped off his car, he’d take his ignition key off his key ring and hand it to us. We dutifully would tie a numbered keytag onto it and attach it to the repair order. Then, unknowingly, Big Al would slip the problem into his cavern of a pants pocket. Then he would walk away-with it in his pocket!

But, he didn’t walk away with a free fix. No, not this time. I charged him for two hours diagnostic time and the ignition switch. Well, he did get away with a free tow job, and a good four hours of unbillable time. But, it was worth it to get him off my back—and to see that big smile on his face. As luck would have it, he moved up north somewhere—and out of my life.

The lessons to be learned are:

> You can never put a wrench on a word problem.

> Find out the basis of the complaint before proceeding.

> Make the complaint happen, so you can witness it, before proceeding.

> Dig into the vehicle history for clues.

> Changes you make in attempting to repair a problem can compound the problem.